Michelle-Lee Ahye and Reyare Thomas will chase T&T’s fourth medal when they line up in the women’s 100 metres gold medal race at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile on Tuesday.
On an extremely cold evening at the National Stadium on Monday, Ahye had to get on her marks three times before she raced across the line in second place in the third semifinal heat for an automatic qualifying spot into the final.
She clocked 11.64 seconds to finish behind Cuba’s Yunisleidy Garcia, who clocked the fastest qualifying time of 11.53 seconds.
“There was just a lot going on out there. I’m just happy to be in the final,” said Ahye after the race. “After the first two callbacks, I was over it. I’m glad to be healthy. I feel good.”
In the first instance when the third and final heat was sent out, the starter recalled the race, but only Ahye and Garcia pulled up while the rest of the field unknowingly completed the race. At the line, they learned that it had to be run over.
Moments later, they were off a second time but were recalled once more due to a false start. The green card came out as a warning to the entire field.
The third try was successful and it was Garcia crossed first with a time of 11.53 followed by Ahye in second and Colombian Laura Martinez in third with 10.70, not quick enough to progress which meant that Thomas’ 11.69 would get the final spot as one of the fastest losers.
On getting the chance to win T&T’s fourth medal at Santiago 2023, she said: “That’s my goal to get a medal we will see what happens tomorrow.”
Earlier, Thomas had the nervous wait to learn whether she got through to the final after clocking 11.69 seconds to place third in the opening heat. She followed the Mexican Cecilia Tamayo with 11.66 seconds and Liranyi Alonso of the Dominican Republic who clocked 11.69 seconds.
“I think I slipped a little bit in the start I had to make up ground to the end and I thought I had it but I guess they just nip me on the line,” said Thomas during the waiting period.
Ahye and Thomas are the only sprinters that will be featured in Tuesday’s final after Jerod Elcock was eliminated after he crossed fourth in a time of 10.58 seconds in the first men’s heat. His race had to be restarted due to a false start by Ronal Longa of Columbia, who was removed from the race.
“I was a bit cautious in the next round and then that kind of threw me off, throw off my start. I didn’t react the way I wanted to and by the time I got up it was too late,” said Elcock after the race.
Cuban Shainer Rengifo and Alonso Edward were the automatic qualifiers with times of 10.36 and 10.37, respectively in the third heat.
Only two runners advanced from heat two, Eric Barbosa of Brazil with 10.43 and Diego Gonzalez of Puerto Rico with 10.50 seconds as heat one was the quickest semifinal. Jose Alnardo Gonzalez of the Dominican Republic (10.30) and Felipe Bardi of Brazil (10.33) were the automatic qualifiers, while Guyanese Emanuel Archibald (10.35) and Odaine McPherson (10.37), the third and fourth-place finishers in the opening heat advanced as the fastest losers to the medal race.
Elcock will look to put yesterday’s race behind him and focus on his next event, the men’s 4x100m along with Judah Taylor, Kyle Greaux, and Eric Harrison Jr on Thursday.
“The 4x100 we going out there to win gold,” said a positive Elcock.
Tomorrow (Tuesday), Thomas is expected to be back on the track in women’s 200m semifinal heats.
Thus far, T&T has three medals thanks to Nicholas Paul’s gold and silver in the men’s sprint and keirin events and a bronze from the 3x3 basketball team of Chike Augustine, Moriba De Freitas, and twin brothers Ahkeel and Ahkeem Boyd.
T&T’s women’s hockey team could not stop the onslaught by Argentina, one of the top teams in the world, and suffered its biggest margin of defeat at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
The local “Stickwomen”, coached by Akim Toussaint, fell to a huge 21-0 loss in the opening match at the Hockey Sports Centre on another cold morning in the capital city.
“We knew exactly what we were going into against Argentina, the top team in the entire world so the plan was just to make sure that it doesn’t get out of hand, not too bad, just make sure we didn’t get any more injuries because we already have a lot of injuries for the tournament,” said Toussaint after another lopsided group stage match.
Augustina Gorzelany led the charge for Argentina with six goals, Maria Granatto bagged three goals, five-some Valentina Raposo, Sofia Cairo, Delfina Thome, Eugenia Trinchinetti, and Julieta Jankunas, each scored a double, and duo Maria Campoy and Victoria Sauze had one apiece.
Undermanned T&T did well to hold off the Argetinians early in the match but it lasted until the ninth minute when Campoy netted the first of eight penalty corner goals in the one-sided match., Three minutes later, Cairo found the back of the net, to give the powerhouse a 2-0 lead which T&T managed to keep them at, at the end of the first quarter.
However, on the resumption, it went downhill for T&T from there. Argentina added six goals in the second quarter with Gorzelany scoring three-straight goals—back-to-back - penalty corners in the 22nd and 23rd and a field goal in the 24th minute to hold an 8-0 advantage at halftime.
The Argentinians doubled their score in the third quarter - three from Granatto (33rd, 40th, 42nd), two from Gorzelany (36th, 43rd), and one each from Trinchinette (32d), Thome (40th), and Jankunas (43rd).
It was much of the same in the fourth and final quarter with Argentina dominating and closing out the huge victory against T&T, who were again without several players due to injury including captain Alana Lewis, Shaniah De Freitas, and Zene Henry.
“There are two other players with niggling injuries as well like Katherine Benjamin, No 17, she played with a fractured finger for the tournament so far, so it’s just for us to try to manage them as well as possible and see how we go into the next round,” said Toussaint, a former senior national men’s player.
“The injuries are a mixture of lack of preparation as well as just niggling stuff that happened on the field because they went into that first game which was quite tough as well. I think that’s where the injuries started coming,”
The 21-0 victory helped the Argentinians score nine points from their three matches advance to the top of the points table and earn a spot in the semifinals.
As for Team TTO, this is not the first time they’ve been at the losing end of a whitewash victory. The local team conceded defeat to the United States (15-0) and to Uruguay (11-0). The winless T&T sits at the bottom of group A.
“We are going to go as hard as we can for this fifth to eighth place,” said Toussaint. “I think the teams going for the fifth and eighth place are closer to our level so now we really have a chance to actually try to snatch a victory.”
Toussaint has remained positive throughout the tough outings and admitted that more needs to be done by the powers that be, for this country to be competitive against the higher-ranked teams in the competition.
“Well that’s going to have to be coming from help from the TTHB (T&T Hockey Board) as well as the government, cause we need a water-based turf to be able to train constantly. We had to train at the ballpark and had to come up with the money to find to get to play at the ballpark for five days for the week,” said Toussaint.
Meanwhile, T&T table tennis player Rheann Chung lost 4-0 to Cuban Daniela Fonseca in the women’s singles competition.
The preliminary round-of-32 match on table two at the Olympic Training Centre in Nunoa was one-sided from the start with Chung losing the first three games, 11-7, 11-1, and 11-5.
The 38-year-old had to win the fourth game to stay alive but lost it 11-6, for a final score of 4-0.
